


The Voice

by TheManicMagician



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gaslighting, Gen, MAJOR TLJ SPOILERS, Manipulation, Mental Coercion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 09:17:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13408128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheManicMagician/pseuds/TheManicMagician
Summary: Ben was eleven when he first heard the Voice.





	The Voice

**Author's Note:**

> A ficlet I wrote up after I saw TLJ for the second time and just got around to typing up. Though I’m very conflicted on the film, I do love Kylo’s character. This little thing is just really an excuse to toss some headcanons around.

He wanted a cookie before dinner, and with his mind he nudged the jar off the high kitchen counter. He was six.

His mother, instead of scolding, grabbed him up for a big hug. When she left the room to call Uncle Luke, his father even ruffled his hair.

Ben was eleven when he first heard the Voice. Wise. Silken. Quiet, but his mind fell to a hush to listen. Whenever he felt doubt or insecurity, it reminded him of his power. He was special, he was important. He was somebody. He was meant for great things.

Uncle Luke helped him build his lightsaber. Blue, like his namesake. The Voice whispered that red would have been better.

The Voice rejoiced when he was sent to join Uncle Luke—no, Master Skywalker. Ben had been waiting in the wings to prove his prowess in the Force, in everything his Master asks of him, and now he was to take center stage for his debut performance.

Another Padawan—not a Skywalker, not a Solo, a _nobody_ plucked from the Outer Rim—was his very first opponent in combat.

Ben lost.

The Voice growled its disapproval in his mind. He was meant to be great. His debut was a face plant onto the stage. It haunted Ben as he trained, and trained, and trained, until no Padawan could touch him. Until the mantra of his failure turned to grudging praise. In the privacy of his room, Ben wept tears of relief as his migraine dulled and the Voice allowed him to sleep again.

Master Skywalker started regarding him differently. Oddly. The Voice reminded Ben that he was there to prove his worth to his Master, and he would. But he knew all along why he’d really been sent away for training. Ben was in the way. His mother, senator, leader, too busy for a child. His father, suspicious of his powers, jealous, dumb. They’d had countless arguments over nothing before he’d been sent away. Ben wasn’t worth the energy to deal with, but it didn’t matter, because the Voice saw in him what they did not.

One night the Voice shrieked inside his head to _wake up now_. He blinked awake, the Force pulsing with danger, and he heard a lightsaber hum to life behind his back. Slowly, he turned.

His Master— _traitor liar kill HIM liar liar LIAR_ —illuminated by the brilliant green saber. Death in his eyes.

Ben grabbed his lightsaber and _reacted._

_~*~_

The Voice led him from the cinders of the Jedi Academy, and before long he knelt before Supreme Leader Snoke. The wise Master planned to mold the galaxy into a new shape, and Kylo Ren was to be his tool.

Things made sense now. An unexpected bloom of relief. Supreme Leader Snoke was the source of the Voice, surely.

None of it was his fault. The Padawans that fell. Anything else that was to come of his decision, it didn’t matter, because it was never his decision to make. Fate already dealt his hand before he was born. He’d been chosen for this destiny. He had no agency, he did as the Voice instructed.

(He could have chosen not to listen.)

Kylo convinced himself the Voice sounds like Snoke, but he knew it was his own.

~*~

Starkiller base. Ben’s father—not Kylo’s not his not anymore—shouted his old name on the parapet. The Voice urged him. Kill the light. Rip it out. Keep uprooting until there’s nothing left.

Ben’s father looked at him with sad blue eyes. Like he was something to save. (Something still _worth_ saving.) But there was no Ben Solo anymore, only Kylo Ren.

It was easy. One press of a button, and Han Solo was run through. In his last seconds, Han Solo reached out, his hand brushing against Kylo’s cheek. The contact threw him, the first touch of love he’d had in years. A weak flicker of light stirred in his soul. Kylo stomped it out as Han Solo fell into the depths of the Starkiller.

He felt nothing anymore. Nothing but rage as the Wookie got in a lucky shot, anger as the girl challenged him—a nobody, just like the Padawan from the Outer Rim—and triumphed over him.

Pathetic.

~*~

A child in a mask. That’s all he was. He left the Supreme Leader’s chambers and punched the wall of the elevator until the skin of his knuckles split apart inside his gloves.

—stupid childish fool kid pathetic padawan scum disgusting useless worthless nobody—

Supreme Leader Snoke was right. Always right. He didn’t wear the mask again.

His mother hated him now, the Voice insisted, but it didn’t have to. He’d obliterated the fledgling Republic she’d worked his whole life to build. He’d murdered her husband. His father.

Root it all out. Kill the sentiment, destroy the past. To be Kylo Ren he had to extinguish any light within him. Kylo Ren lined up his sights on the control center of the lead Rebel ship, where Ben Solo’s mother was.

She knew he was there. He sensed her. His thumb hovered over the button (another button, another push and he’d be an orphan of his own doing) which would reduce the entire room to nothing, just one push and the Voice was unrelenting in his mind, screaming—Do it Do it Kill her she’s nothing hates you worthless do IT fulfill don’t fail don’t be a failure NEED to kill—

He didn’t do it. He _couldn’t_ do it.

But his subordinates, the one’s he’d ordered to stick close to him, they did it. The control center erupts in a ball of fire. He might as well have killed her.

He was an orphan now, but not alone. He always had the Voice. And he needed to make up for his latest failure.

~*~

The girl. The gutter rat. Her mind slipped inside his own and he…he hadn’t been exposed to the Light like this since

(His father’s hand brushed across his cheek)

Since.

The Voice didn’t go away—it never went away, ever—but it dulled to a murmur, the Light overbearing in its intensity. The Voice hissed at him to recoil, but he reached for the girl’s hand.

~*~

A choice was put before him. What the girl wanted. What the Voice wanted. Light and Dark. Despair and hope.

Rather than chose a side, Kylo Ren made his own choice.

Like with Han Solo, it was easy. The saber—his grandfather’s, his uncle’s—ignited and pierced his true enemy. Snoke sagged on his throne.

~*~

He wakes up. Hux is here, confused over the carnage. The girl is gone, the Voice is silent, and, for the first time he can remember…

He is alone.


End file.
